6 Things Marketing Leaders Can Be Thankful for This Year

The life of a marketing executive is busy to say the least. Between keeping up with the hottest trends, managing a dynamic and multifaceted team, and executing a competitive strategy, it’s difficult to find time for perspective.

Today’s marketing leaders have more challenges than ever before. But they’re also faced with more opportunities and advantages worth being thankful for. As Thanksgiving approaches and a chaotic holiday season looms, now is an excellent time to take step back and consider all the things you have to be appreciative of (besides turkey, of course).

A More Powerful Voice

With their place at the forefront of digital efforts, growing ability to prove their value, and increased alignment with other organizations, marketing executives have been rewarded with higher regard and a more prominent seat in the board room.

Successful organizations have moved past the archaic mindset of considering an expensive afterthought, finally realizing the benefits of a robust marketing infrastructure supporting the whole business. The companies who haven’t adapted have largely fallen into irrelevance, leaving marketing heads with unprecedented corporate eminence, authority, budgets and respect.

Whether you’re looking for job security in your current role, or considering a move to a more interesting role or better salary, it’s a good time to be a talented marketing leader—especially if your expertise lies in digital.

Automation

Automation is systematically permeating every facet marketing, even traditional, non-digital fields. And not a moment too soon.

Automation requires a well-thought out strategy and talented marketing automation staffing (and often a marketing automation consultant or two) to effectively set up. But once it’s been established, it can save you and your team a lot of work and time.

If you’ve ever had to manually pull reports, painstakingly score leads, or distribute an email campaign send by send without even personalizing the messages, then the potential of automation is certainly something to be grateful for. That kind of tedious work is rarely enjoyable, and it holds marketers back from being truly strategic and creative.

Automation isn’t a silver bullet that will somehow do away with all repetitive, labor intensive marketing tasks or magically fix a broken strategy. But it is providing innovative organizations with more breathing room to focus on what really matters.

IT and Sales

It’s not uncommon for Marketing to butt heads with other departments, and contentious relationships with Sales and IT are especially common. But even if you don’t always see eye to eye with them and their leaders, you should still be grateful for them.

Much like an abrasive sibling rivalry, it’s valuable to remember that ultimately you’re on the same side and ultimately working toward the same goals. You need them as much as they need you! Be grateful for your team members, and the future opportunities to improve relationships with better IT marketing recruitment.

Never a Dull Day

If there’s one thing that can be said about today’s marketing, it’s that the jobs never get boring. Every week a new channel or technology emerges that promises to “change marketing forever.” There’s always something just over the horizon that presents new challenges and opportunities, and endless opportunities to learn and grow.

The Opportunity to Create Something Meaningful

Marketing has seen a dramatic shift from pushing out sales messages to creating valuable, engaging, entertaining and useful content that draws consumers organically. Increasingly, marketers’ work doesn’t just provide value to their employer; it adds meaningful, practical value to consumers as well.

Though outbound “push” marketing can still be effective, it’s often not satisfying to use your intellect and creativity to build campaigns that rely on repetition and psychological tricks. On the other hand, building a highly educational whitepaper that’s used as a referential resource or a video so engaging people can’t stop watching is extremely gratifying. As content marketing and inbound marketing talent becomes more prevalent, marketing executives increasingly have the satisfaction of actively contributing to the world.

A Time for Gratitude

As an experienced marketer, what makes you grateful? We’d love to hear your thoughts and stories!